West Midlands Mayor, Andy Street, visited the LoCaL Homes factory in Beechdale, Walsall this week to see innovation in off-site manufacturing first-hand.

Andy Street, who has pledged to put the Black Country at the top of his agenda, toured the Accord LoCaL Homes factory in Beechdale, Walsall and heard more about how the homes built by Accord are not only better quality and highly insulated, but can be delivered at a lower cost than traditionally built homes. The innovative design, manufacturing and construction process are all carried out in-house by Accord and the offsite manufacturing process also helps to address the skills shortage in the house-building sector by creating training and employment opportunities for local people.

Alan Yates, Accord's Executive Commercial Director of Commercial, said: “Andy Street's visit was a great opportunity for us to show the new Mayor how our innovation in off-site manufacturing can help increase the supply of quality new homes and address the housing crisis both in the West Midlands and nationally."

Situated in Beechdale, LoCaL Homes is the off-site manufacturing arm of leading housing and care organisation, Accord. LoCaL Homes (which stands for Low Carbon Living) offers closed timber panelised housing products forming part of its affordable, low carbon housing solution.

The factory opened in 2011, has created over 20 local jobs and made history by being the first timber factory opened by a housing association.

As part of the visit, Andy also visited the Innovation Way development, comprising of 120 high quality affordable homes for local people, all designed and manufactured at LoCaL Homes, just across the road from the development.

Andy Street said:

“It has been a pleasure to visit LoCaL Homes and to see the superb Innovation Way development. It is great to see that these homes were built using low carbon timber frames.

“Using innovative approaches like offsite construction provides a huge opportunity to increase housing supply. The houses manufactured in the LoCal Homes factory are incredibly energy efficient and the build time is very short, and their plans for further growth are definitely exciting."